Up, Up, and Away
by Alixtii
Summary: A package on a doorstep. A phone call from a woman who sees everything. A link to the past. Supergirl and Oracle.


She returned to her apartment to find a package on her doorstep. Cautiously, she picked it up and brought it inside. She hadn't ordered anything and the return address was blank.

She opened it to find a miscellany of items. A CD in a thin jewel case. A cell phone. A white slip of paper with an address in Metropolis written on it. A blonde wig. A blue skirt. A white shirt emblazoned with a red "S." She stood, frozen, staring at the items when the cell phone rang; apparently someone had seen the Jason Bourne movies too many times. She snatched it up and pressed the button to answer it. "Who is this?" she asked. "Where did you get this?"

"My name is Oracle," answered the female voice on the other end. "And I think you know quite well who I got those things from, Linda."

Her world was reeling; seeing the costume again stirred up old memories she thought had long been buried. She reached out, took the fabric between her fingers. It was the real thing, not an imitation or fake; the feel of it against her skin was an all too familiar sensation, however she might try to forget it.

"What do you want from me?" she asked.

"The DVD," Oracle answered. "Play it."

Linda opened the disc case and took the disc over to her computer. "Oh my god," she said as the video began to play. "That's--"

It was a teenaged girl, blonde hair, dressed in a frilly red knee-length skirt and an oversized black t-shirt emblazoned with a red "S," torn and tied in order to leave the girl's midriff exposed. She sat on a couch with a cigarette in her hand, across from a table covered in beer bottles. Linda reached out, touched the screen of her computer monitor.

"That's Kara Zor-El, last daughter of Krypton, cousin to Superman," finished Oracle in cool, clipped tones that made it completely clear that she already knew perfectly well that Linda knew who the girl in the video was."

_Kara_. Linda would have recognized her anywhere. There were differences, of course, subtle signs that this was not the same Kara Zor-El Linda had known, even if one ignored the dead give-aways of the outfit and the cigarettes and the alcohol. But they were dwarfed by the similarities, by the undeniable fact that this _was_ Kara Zor-El. On a fundamental level, they were the same person--the same soul. Even in the less than clear video, Linda could see it in her eyes.

She had seen the headlines, of course, on the _Daily Planet _and the _New York Times_. A new Supergirl. She hadn't seemed to be on any of the major teams, like the Teen Titans or Young Justice, but she had been seen assisting Superman here and there. And then no sign of her for a while--but then, neither was there any of Superman, or Batman, or Wonder Woman.

Linda frowned. "How did you get this video?"

"Clark asked me to keep an eye on her."

"By spying on her?" Linda asked. That wasn't like Clark, and Linda found herself suddenly affronted on the behalf of this Kara she never knew. Neither did she fail to notice that Oracle had said _Clark_, not Superman--something that she had no doubt intended Linda to notice.

"He knows better than to ask," Oracle answered. "But, come on, Linda, look at her. What do you see?"

Linda stared at the grainy video of the familiar young woman. "She looks so sad." At her best, her Kara had been impossibly perky. At her worst, she had been lost, lonely, confused--but if one considered that she had just lost her family (except for Clark) and her homeworld, one would have to admit that she had taken it all incredibly well. Never had she seen the pain and the loss etched onto that Kara's face that was evidenced on this one's.

"She's wearing the t-shirt of her dead cousin," Oracle pointed out. "So, yes, I think saying she's sad would be a safe bet."

Oh, right. That's where she had seen that shirt before. It was a different costume than the one he had worn when she had known him. "I . . . heard about Kon," she said. "It's a shame. He was a good kid."

"Yes," agreed Oracle. "He was. But so is Kara. She's just young. And now that she and Karen have fallen out, she's feeling alone in the world. Like no one knows what she's going through."

Linda paused the video. "You don't know what you're asking me. I'm the one who--"

"I know what you did," Oracle interrupted. "And that's why I think you need to do this."

Linda walked back to the table, put the wig and clothes back into the box. "I'm not that person anymore."

"We all tell ourselves that at some point," Oracle answered. "That we can just stop being superheroes. Walk away from what we were. That it'll be easier not to feel. I've seen woman after woman try to turn their back on who they were, on what they knew was right. But none of them could, not in the end. You touched something great, Linda--now's your chance to do it again."

"But--"

_Call ended_ read the cell phone. She put it in the box with the wig and clothes. She picked it up, about to take it to the kitchen to put it in the trash, but then put it back down again and walked back over to her computer. Hit "play." Watched as Kara took a swig of beer followed by a long drag on her cigarette--not that either would be likely to have any effect on her, of course.

The Kara she had known was made for that other world, the one where villains didn't kill people and people didn't swear and there were five channels on television. She was innocent, optimistic, hopeful. This Kara, made for this world, harsh and dark, was none of those things, but rather fallen, broken, directionless. Just like another Supergirl Linda happened to know. Or be.

But the girl in the video was still Kara. Everything else was, ultimately, inconsequential in the face of this single undeniable fact. She was Kara, and she needed Linda's help.

In a blink of an eye--if she was going to do this, then there was no need for putting it off--Linda put on the wig and changed into the Supergirl costume. In the next, she was out the door, on her way to Metropolis. Up, up, and away. 


End file.
